The National Neurotrauma Society (NNS) annual symposium is the primary forum for exchanging information in the fields of both traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injury (SCI). This application seeks funding support for 20 pre- and post-doctoral trainees to attend the 31st National Neurotrauma Symposium and partial support for the travel of 55 invited speakers. The meeting will be held at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. NNS will co-host the meeting with the Joint Section on Trauma/Critical Care of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons/Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The 2013 meeting will be the third year for this collaboration, which has been very successful, and has enhanced the meeting by attracting more neurosurgery and neurocritical care clinicians to the meeting. Members of the Joint Section were included in the program planning committee to be certain that there was sufficient mix of clinical and translational basic science topics. Highlights of the program include sessions on combination therapy for neurotrauma; combined brain and spinal cord injuries; mild TBI updates including new treatment strategies for mild TBI and post-trauma headaches; SCI updates on treatment trials; an update on the management of penetrating brain injury; and the role of mitochondria and the role of microglia in acute neurotrauma. There will be a special session hosted by the Women in Neurotrauma (WiNTR) organization for early career investigators. This session is an evolution of WiNTR very successful activities to not only mentor women but also all early career investigators. In an attempt to involve other important disciplines in the meeting, there will also be a session on the role of pharmacists in neurotrauma research. There will also be a session on harmonizing preclinical TBI/SCI research and a roundtable discussion of issues related to translation of neuroprotective strategies from the laboratory to clinical trials.